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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Resident red shouldered hawk

Hello again readers!! The subject of today's photo post is a red shouldered hawk, which has taken up residence at the top of a large pine tree directly across from our home. While we are by no means official avian experts, it seems that there is a male and a female who take turns in a very large nest at the top of the tree. We have been doing research as much as possible to try to figure out if there are baby hawks in the nest, but as of yet we have not been able to confirm whether there are baby hawks or not. We have even contemplated procuring a drone for a look into the nest, as it is about 100 feet off of the ground, but we don't want to hawk(s) to injure itself in the event that it would attack the drone, not to mention the cost of fixing the drone if it were to be attacked.

The hawk has drawn a lot of attentions from black birds (probably either grackles or starlings) who are very noisy when the hawk is perched in a branch. I was hopeful that the hawk was going to smack one of the black birds with the branch it was holding in its beak, but after holding onto it for about two minutes it just let it go and it kind of pinballed its way down the tree finally coming to rest on the ground. It has been very interesting and awe inspiring to be able to see such large birds so close over the past few months. Hopefully there are some baby hawks (which would be some GREAT photos) but, more importantly, hopefully they move in and reuse the nest in the coming years!

Perched

Soaring

Please feel free to click on the photo above to view it in various sizes. Clicking on the photo also takes you to my online gallery, hosted over at smugmug, where you can browse this (and other) photos that I have posted. If you enjoyed viewing this photo, please take a moment and leave comments and/or feedback. Please also feel free to pass the link of this photo on to others if you so desire. Thanks for stopping by!!